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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Contemplating Customer Reward Schemes

The accommodation industry isn't immune from dabbling with new ways to connect with consumers.

Travellers are regually confronted with offers to join mailing lists, apply for a card that collects points or scan QR codes for the promise of special treatment.

Loyalty schemes seem to be extremely popular at the moment and all accommodation marketing groups have them to a greater or lesser extent. Loyalty schemes are a great way to connect with consumers and if a company can embed their own branded loyalty card within the valuable real estate of the purses and wallets of consumers, then they have the opportunity to achieve great things.

The difficultly arises when the market become saturated with these perfectly-formed plastic loyalty cards. Competition is becoming intense. The consumer can only carry around so many of them and only those cards that have simple, intuitive programs and are perceived to return the greatest benefit will survive.

So how can a company stand out from the scrum of bland offerings, when contemplating a customer rewards program...

That's when I came across a new twist on a loyalty scheme that demands further investigation....

Here's an offer that a lot of drivers would have a tough time turning down: free sex after nine car washes.

Police near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, cracked down last week after getting wind of the unique offer from the teaming of a car wash and a massage parlor in the suburb of Sunway Mentari, the Malay Mail reports.

Nine Vietnamese women, ages 18 to 28, believed to be prostitutes were arrested.
Police learned of the unique partnership between the car wash and sex ring when they kept finding car wash loyalty cards in the pockets of alleged customers of the sex ring.

The Mail quotes Emmi Shah Fadhil, the officer in charge of the area's Crime Prevention Division, as saying: "To get the extra 'offer', customers must send their cars for washing nine times within a certain period. The 10th car wash will entitle them to free sex," said Emmi Shah.

"When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness of man, I think of man's magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer all that senseless space. When I look at mountain peaks, I think of tunnels and dynamite. When I look at the planets, I think of airplanes." - Ayn Rand 1943